The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is a 2018 anthology film written, produced and directed by Joel Coen and Ethan Coen. The film premiered at the 75th Venice International Film Festival on August 31, 2018. It won the Golden Osella Award for Best Screenplay. On November 16, the film was released on Netlflix. 'Plot' The film is presented in the form of a short story collection called The Ballad of Buster Scruggs and Other Tales of the American Frontier. Segments in between depict a hand turning the pages of a book as it goes through the six chapters. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs Buster Scruggs is a happy-go-lucky singing cowboy clad in white who travels atop his horse Dan. He explains to the audience that he is considered an outlaw and a "misanthrope", though he claims that he does not hate his fellow man. He steps into a criminal filled bar to ask for whiskey, but the owner turns him down due to his appearance. When he is threatened by another outlaw, Buster shoots him and the rest of the outlaws in a fantastic display before heading into town. He steps into a saloon where he is forced to check his guns at the door. He sits to a game of poker only to discover that the man before him had a losing hand. As he tries to talk his way out of the game, another player named Surly Joe threatens him with a concealed weapon. Buster flips a board from the table and has the gun go off repeatedly into Joe's face and then proceeds to get the whole bar to sing with him about Joe's death. Joe's brother calls Buster out into the street for a duel, but Buster quickly blasts each of his individual fingers off before finishing him off. A young man clad in black arrives and recognizes Buster, noting that he "is the one to beat" at both gunfighting and singing. The young man challenges Buster to a duel. To Buster's own surprise, he is shot clean in the head and admits that he knew this was coming for him. Both the young man and Buster sing a duet as the latter floats into heaven complete with angel wings and a harp. Near Algodones A cowboy walks into a bank out in the middle of nowhere in New Mexico and after a short conversation with the bank teller proceeds to rob him. As the cowboy tries to leave, the bank teller comes at him with a rifle and knocks him out. The cowboy awakens to discover that he is about to be hanged, but the hangman and his posse are suddenly attacked by the Comanche who proceed to kill everyone sans the cowboy who they leave in his position. A drover arrives and frees the cowboy, but they are suddenly captured again by law enforcement (the drover was stealing cattle) and sentenced to hang. As the cowboy awaits his fate, he spots a woman in the crowd and comments on her beauty before the hangman pulls the lever. Meal Ticket An aging impresario and his artist, a young man with no arms or legs named Harrison, travel from town to town in a wagon that converts into a small stage where upon Harrison theatrically recites classics such as Shelley's poem Ozymandias, the biblical story of Cain and Abel, Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, and Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. The impresario collects money from the audience at the end of each performance, receiving less and less as they visit increasingly remote mountain towns with smaller and more indifferent audiences, and he grows weary and callous from performing all the physical labor in the endeavor as well as having to feed, dress, and assist Harrison in relieving himself. Their financial situation is never desperate, as the impresario has sufficient savings to visit a prostitute, and later draws from a large roll of dollar bills in his coat to buy a chicken of unusual talent in hopes of supplanting Harrison's performances. The impresario observes a man drawing a crowd with the chicken, which can ostensibly perform basic math, pecking at the correct numeric answers to addition and subtraction equations that the audience calls out. After buying the chicken, as the impresario drives their wagon through a mountain pass, he stops by a bridge over a rushing river. He walks to the center of the bridge and drops a large stone into the river as though gauging its depth and the potential deadliness of the fall. He walks back to the wagon wearing a faint smile, and the film then cuts to the story's final scene in which he has resumed driving the wagon, but with the chicken his only remaining passenger and Harrison presumably thrown into the river they passed. All Gold Canyon A grizzled prospector arrives in a pristine mountain valley. Beside a stream that winds through the valley, the prospector begins digging soil samples and panning through them in the stream to count the gold flecks and thereby slowly determine the area with the greatest concentration and possibly a major gold deposit, which he calls "Mr. Pocket". He eventually identifies the most promising spot and digs a grave-sized hole wherein he finds several sizeable gold nuggets and a large gold vein running through the quartz rock. No sooner does he make his discovery than a young man sneaks up to the edge of the hole and shoots him in the back. However, the bullet passes through the prospector without striking any vital organs, and when the young man jumps into the hole to steal the gold, the prospector springs to life and kills him. The prospector then assesses and cleans his wound in the stream, finishes digging the gold from the hole, pushes the young man's body back into the hole to serve as his grave, and departs the valley with his bounty. The Gal Who Got Rattled Alice Longabaugh and her business-inept brother Gilbert travel with a caravan to Oregon for "opportunities" which have not even been justified. Along the way, Gilbert dies from cholera and Alice must contend with her brother's farm hand, Matt, who was promised the large sum of $200 upon making it to Oregon. One of the caravan handlers, Billy Knapp, begins to sympathize with Alice due to her shaken attitude towards recent events. He politely tends to her when fellow travelers complain about her barking dog, President Pierce, and when Matt threatens to leave Alice if he is not promised his pay. Eventually, Billy offers a way to solve her problems: marry him in Oregon and due to laws will be given numerous acres of land to settle and raise on their own. He admits that he had been working the trails for years and has been wanting to stop and settle down. Alice is shocked, but the very next day agrees to his proposal. Sometime later, Billy's partner, Mr. Arthur, notices that Alice is missing and finds her far from the caravans watching prairie dogs with President Pierce. They are suddenly attacked by Comanches with Mr. Arthur giving Alice a gun to use on herself in the case that he is killed. Mr. Arthur does manage to survive, but a false alarm causes Alice to believe that he had been killed and she shoots herself. Mr. Arthur solemnly walks back to the caravans with President Pierce unsure of what to say to Billy. The Mortal Remains Five people, an Englishman (Thigpen); an Irishman (Clarence); a Frenchman (René); a Lady (Mrs. Betjamen) and a Trapper, are traveling by stagecoach as the sun begins to set. The Englishman and Clarence explain that they have a friend (a corpse) on the roof. The Trapper tells of his time with a Native woman whose ambiguous relationship he had with her have convinced him that "people are like ferrets" in that everyone is the same. Mrs. Betjamen, a Christian, finds the claim ridiculous and that people are divided into two groups: good and bad; proclaiming that her husband, whom she has not seen in three years, has intellectually taught her about everything. René questions the relationship between her and her husband and challenges her on the concept of love. The resulting argument causes Mrs. Betjamen to choke. René tries to get the coach driver to stop, but the Englishman states that he "never stops". Clarence calms everyone with a song and he and the Englishman reveal their jobs as "reapers", though the Trapper takes it to mean bounty hunters. The two go on about their "job" and the body they are transferring. Ultimately, the stagecoach stops at a hotel and the Englishman and Clarence take their body and enter the hotel. The other three reluctantly exit the stagecoach and enter the hotel to see a well furbished lobby and a staircase with a bright light at the top. The Trapper and Mrs. Betjamen enter with the latter stating that her husband is "waiting" for her. Realizing his fate, René optimistically puts his hat on and enters the building while the doors close behind him. 'Cast' Starring *Tim Blake Nelson as Buster Scruggs *James Franco as Cowboy *Liam Neeson as Impresario *Tom Waits as Prospector *Zoe Kazan as Alice Longabaugh *Brendan Gleeson as Clarence Also Starring *Clancy Brown as Surly Joe *David Krumholtz as Frenchman in Saloon *Willie Watson as The Kid *Stehpen Root as Teller *Ralph Ineson as The Man in Black *Harry Melling as Harrison *Bill Heck as Billy Knapp *Grainger Hines as Mr. Arthur *Tyne Daly as Mrs. Betjamen *Saul Rubinek as René *Chelcie Ross as Trapper *Jonjo O'Neill as Thigpen Co-Stars *Tim DeZarn as Angry Man *Tom Proctor as Hard Man *Martin Palmer as Blubberer *Jefferson Mays as Gilbert Longabaugh *Ethan Dubin as Matt